Slow Cooker Ragu

My Slow Cooker Ragu is a hearty, vegetable packed sauce that is perfect for any pasta you like.

Slow Cooker Ragu uses a blend of 7 vegetables with shredded pork and flavorful spices to make a hearty and delicious ragu sauce. Serve over pasta. Also freezer friendly!

Ragu isn’t necessarily a tomato based “spaghetti sauce,” although it does contain tomatoes. Technically it is the Italian term for any meat-based sauce simmered with vegetables and liquids, only excluding Alfredo, scampi, carbonara and other cream and cheese based sauces.

In the case of Slow Cooker Ragu, I am simmering pork in red wine and/or tomato broth with carrots, celery, onion, garlic and “super green”, kale. You can use a non-alcoholic cooking wine, omit the wine all together or use your favorite drinking red wine.

Choose a wine you like, the sauce will carry the notes- woody to woody, sweet to sweet. The cooking process will dissolve any alcohol, however if you prefer use an alcohol free, generic red cooking wine from the grocery store, please do, but go a little heavier on the spices to not lose too much flavor.

Another reason to love tasty Slow Cooker Ragu is that is freezes beautifully. This batch will feed up to 8 normal people (only 6 if it is my husband and his friends.) Make a large batch and freeze half for another night.

It does not have to be served with gnocchi, however I prefer the doughy potato texture with a rich and savory sauce. Don’t eat pork? Substitute beef or chicken.

If you like our Slow Cooker Ragu, you’ll love these other slow cooker recipes:

Place onion through black pepper in your slow cooker, mix with a spoon. Place roast in slow cooker, smear the top of the roast with mixture. Set slow cooker for low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

Thirty minutes prior to serving, skim off any excess fat that has risen to the top and remove roast. Shred roast using two large forks. Return meat to the slow cooker and add unsalted butter and kale. If your sauce requires additional thickening, you can combine 2 tablespoons corn starch in 2 tablespoons of water, whisking out any lumps, and then stir into sauce.

My slow cooker is used more in my house than almost any other of my gadgets – I love using them – especially when ragu, pork tinga, kalua pork/pulled pork or, especially, short ribs are on the menu – can’t go wrong. I love the gnocchi pairing with this meaty ragu!

I just made dinner using a slow cooker tonight and now I am feeling some slow cooker envy towards this one. I love to throw boneless chicken in and then shred it to use in various wraps. I love that you chose gnocchi to serve w/ this delish ragu.

I’ve been seeing a lot of these neat slow cookers around online. I miss slow cookers in general! I live in Germany and bought one imported from the UK and broke it after a few months. Bummer! And the ragu looks great. 🙂

Everytime I see one of these Stay or Go Slow Cookers, I get this little pull inside. I need one! Your ragu sounds so hearty and delicious – and I’m a sucker for gnocchi, so that looks incredibly tempting.